Fiona Joy Hawkins
| Fiona Joy Hawkins | |
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Photograph by Robert McKell
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| Background information | |
| Born | Cessnock, New South Wales, Australia |
| Genres | Classical, new-age, world |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer |
| Instruments | Piano, vocals |
| Years active | 2000s–present |
| Labels | Little Hartley, Blue Coast |
| Associated acts | Will Ackerman |
| Website | www |
Fiona Joy Hawkins is an Australian composer, vocalist, and pianist, who uses the stage-name Fiona Joy. She was born in Cessnock, New South Wales, to a creative family, and trained as a classical pianist.
Hawkins was born in Cessnock, New South Wales and raised in both Newcastle and Tamworth. She first began to study the piano at a young age, composing short pieces for the piano before she was a teenager. She trained at the Tamworth Conservatorium of Music under tutor Ursula Bakker, where she showed early signs of musical talent. Her early music teachers included Es Clarke, Ursula Bakker, and Maureen Newell.
Her first album, Portrait of a Waterfall, charted at No. 1 on the New Age Reporter (NAR) World Charts in 2005. Her classical release, Angel Above My Piano, earned the NAR Lifestyle Music Award for Best Piano Album of the Year for 2006. She has been a finalist multiple times in both the Musicoz Awards in the jazz and classical categories, and the Los Angeles Music Awards in the New Age/Ambient Instrumental category. She has also been interviewed regarding trends in the use of high-end pianos and the potential changes new instruments make to a musician's compositions.
Her collaborations have included an album with Will Ackerman as producer. Her influences include George Winston, Michael Nyman, Chopin, and Mendelssohn.The Sydney Morning Herald said of her in 2007 that she "ranks among the world's best in her genre, but struggles for recognition in her home country" of Australia, largely due to the lack of recognition given to the genre by Australian music critics until she won the 2006 ZMR award. Hawkins is the first Australian to place in the top ten on the ZMR chart and the first to win a ZMR award.
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